Cospa Director and co-founder Oli Barrett receives MBE

Oli Barrett, a Director and co-founder of Cospa has been awarded an MBE for services to business and entrepreneurship in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

In total 1,180 people received an award, and Oli was delighted to see his name in the list.

Oli came up with the idea for Tenner, the national schools enterprise challenge after being inspired by a local vicar who handed cash to his parishioners and challenged them to make money for the church. Currently run by education charity Young Enterprise, the Tenner challenge has been taken on by more than 100,000 school children to date.

He is also a co-founder of StartUp Britain, the private-sector led initiative launched by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011. Its aim is to help budding entrepreneurs around the country by giving them access to practical support from established businesses and business owners.

Responding to the award, Oli said “This comes as a complete surprise and I’ve been overwhelmed by the amazing response from friends and colleagues. Every project I’ve ever worked on has only been made possible by fantastic partners and colleagues. Without them, most of my work would have stayed on the drawing board. I’m incredibly thankful for their support and look forward to working with them and others to create the next projects”

Oli will receive the MBE at an investiture at Buckingham Palace. In the meantime, the whole of Team Cospa send him our warm congratulations!